Should a person get married if it seems to be the right one, but he's not ready for the responsibility of marriage?
ANSWER:
Now I don't know what it means, that he's not ready for the responsibility of marriage, because the responsibility of marriage requires first and foremost, that a person wishes to accept the duties of a decent human being. I am not talking about frumkeit, I imagine both parties here are m'kabel the Torah without reservations. Still, there are so many cases of two sincere people getting married, when one of them – many cases the husband – is not a mentch at all, and he's not going to become a mentch for the next 20 years.
Now if he is working a steady job, that's a good sign. If he's learning steadily, he's a real ben Torah who's learning, also a good sign. If he's neither, or he is a weak ben Torah and just loafing around, he's not ready for marriage now and he will never be ready for marriage.
Beware of a person who doesn't have the fundamental attributes of a mentch – and sometimes he can be a good ben Torah and also not a mentch, an iluy and not a mentch! It's important to find qualities that are acceptable in the eyes of people. And even if the father might be bribed by the thought that here is an iluy, it's a big kavod for me to have him, but he has to realize that an iluy is not yet a husband. And therefore midos tovos, not only midos tovos, some training as a m'urov bein habrios.
That's why I say again and again, don't wait until you are 18 or 19 years old to prepare for marriage. Prepare as soon as you have any ability to listen to teachers. Train yourself in all good qualities: cooperate, learn to be patient, learn to keep your mouth closed, learn that other people have their idiosyncrasies, not everybody is the same, take responsibilities and bear your share of the burden. All the things that are called derech eretz.
These things everybody should learn before marriage. Now you can't learn everything, but as long as a person is headed in the right direction, and he is interested in acquiring such a form of character, then he's ready for marriage.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Important Numbers
